About us

About us

What makes us unique?

From complexity to human creativity

The world is full of complexity and challenges requiring creativity.

 

Creativity is not the talent of a few but part of our human nature. Capturing and sharing creative solutions or engaging in the act of being creative, can unleash hope and vision for a different future.

 

Creativity is not exclusive to the artistic fields. Rather, health and social fields abound with pioneering individuals who have brilliant ideas. Often, they just need encouragement to breathe life into these ideas, such that these ideas can become tangible answers to the much sought-after questions.

“There is a part of us that we will never unlock if we don’t endeavor to create.”

“There is a part of us that we will never unlock if we don’t endeavor to create.”

How do we work?

Bridging silos

Creativity can be nurtured by transcending the siloes and hierarchies that have been created between people and different disciplinary fields. Creativity grounded in a deep understanding of reality, context and culture produces ideas that lead to transformative change.

 

In our work, we bring together different fields: public health, medicine, innovation, economics, and design. We ground our efforts in the experiences gained by living and working across Africa, Asia, South America, Europe, and North America.

 

Connecting policymakers with frontline workers, and international development officers with community members, our projects facilitate meaningful conversations in which new ideas flourish.

“I hope you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes,

then you are making new things,

trying new things, learning, living,

pushing yourself, changing yourself,

changing your world.

You’re doing things 

you’ve never done before, 

and more importantly,

you’re doing something.”

I hope you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re doing something.”

We'd love to work with you

Our Team

We are a team of creative individuals, with unique life experiences that have shaped us.

We care about the work we do, and even more about the people and places we work with.

Our desire is not merely to deliver outputs, but to work in a collaborative relationship with you.


We trust that our health and social systems will change when we are transformed through encounters with each other.

Dr Lindi van Niekerk is a South African medical doctor with expertise in primary care, health systems, and social innovation. In her global health work, Lindi draws on her technical knowledge as a clinician, her qualitative research experience gained in several low-and middle-income countries, her strategic project implementation capacity, and her creative ability as a filmmaker and storyteller.

 

Since 2008, Lindi has been on a journey to catalyze acceptance and create opportunities for social innovation within health systems. While working as a medical doctor, she established the first public hospital-based end of life care project, and as Inclusive Health Innovation Lead at the University of Cape Town’s Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship, she established the first innovation lab in the main public tertiary hospital in Cape Town (Groote Schuur Hospital). Lindi co-founded the Social Innovation in Health Initiative (SIHI) in partnership with the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR), hosted at the World Health Organization. As part of this initiative, she led a multi-partner research study on social innovation models across 17 countries and provided strategic guidance to the establishment of four social innovation research hubs at universities in Malawi, Uganda, the Philippines, and Colombia. In her own doctoral research, she has focused on gaining a deeper understanding of the factors involved in institutionalizing social innovations as part of the health system in Malawi.

 

Since establishing Chembe Collaborative in 2016, she has worked as an independent consultant with clients ranging from universities, multilateral agencies, private companies, and non-governmental organizations. Lindi has a deep sensitivity to the cultural realities of low-and middle-income countries and the health system challenges faced by both people seeking care and providers/policymakers delivering care in these settings.

 

Lindi holds a PhD in Global Health and an MSc in Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and an MBChB from the University of Pretoria. 

Claudi likes understanding and combining seemingly opposite fields, approaches and environments. For her, creativity and analytics are not opposites, but one actually enhances one another. This has driven her to pursue an education in graphic design at Central Saint Martins in London, followed by a degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics at the University in Cape Town as well as, holding her Masters in Development Economics from the University of Amsterdam.

 

As a child of Africa, at the heart of her identity is a passion for social change, which has led her to work on projects relating to financial inclusion, labor fairness and reducing patient waiting times in a pediatric hospital in South Africa. In contrast, Claudi has also worked in more commercial settings, from start-ups to technology consulting for big corporations.

 

Claudi uses her unique background to help her find commonality and patterns when things seem unconnected. She believes that stronger ideas are formed when we combine disciplines, borrow knowledge from one area and customize it to suit the problem at hand.

Ulrich is an experienced strategic innovation, human-centered design, corporate venturing and organizational strategy specialist with a proven track record of more than 20 years across multiple industries, NGOs and geographies.

 

Coupled with his experience as a founder, he is a hands-on, entrepreneurial, pioneering, and agile innovation and design advisor with practical exposure to both established and emerging markets. For the last 10 years, Ulrich has been actively building innovation ecosystems by developing talent pools across the African continent and mentoring emerging inclusive innovation teams, including coaching, and mentoring for the SDG Unleash global innovation hackathon.

 

Through his association with the Institute for Futures Research at Stellenbosch University Business School he has built up a comprehensive innovation coaching and mentoring practice. 

 

Ulrich will be delivering innovation coaching to hospitals across three countries (Pakistan, Azerbaijan and Cameroon) as part of the WHO Hospital Solution Hubs.

Alexa is a video editor and stills photographer with a degree in Photojournalism from Rhodes University. She has worked for numerous international NGOs around Southern Africa such as Rape Crisis, Oxfam, the Aids Healthcare Foundation and the World Health Organisation. She is particularly interested in the politics of marginality and issues around LGBTI+ and gender-based violence in the Global South. Since 2015, Alexa has been editing and producing the videos for the Social Innovation in Health Initiative.

Alasdair is a commercial editor, animator and film director. While working with Chembe, he has produced motion graphics for clients such as TDR, the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases and Kamuzu University of Health Sciences in Malawi.

 

Recently, Alasdair completed his second feature film edit – a period love story set in Zanzibar in Swahili. His first feature film edit for “Saloum”, which premiered in the Midnight Madness Category of the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2021.

 

When he isn’t editing foreign language films, he loves working in the documentary field. Having filmed ice swimming world records in Siberia and Alaska, Environmental Marine conservation documentaries all over South and East Africa and edited many humanitarian and wildlife programmes across Africa and Asia. Alasdair is passionate about telling people’s stories.

 

With his love of film and culture, Alasdair was a founding member of the Cape Town leg of the International Short Film Festival in 2010 and was its festival director for 6 years before retiring the festival in 2020. The festival was designed as a network building event through its many host cities on every continent.

Amy is a multi-faceted graphic designer. She graduated from the Open Window Institute with her BA Degree in Visual Communication, where she double-majored in Communication Design and Illustration. Additionally, she went on to receive a certificate in 3D and VFX at the same institution. Amy has a core understanding that every person should employ their abilities to leave the world a little bit brighter, or better than they found it. This is something she strives to maintain in her personal and professional life.

One of her favourite parts of being a graphic designer is the fact that the industry is ever-changing and evolving. Amy believes in trying new approaches, learning different skills, meeting new people, and exploring unfamiliar spaces – all of which make her uniquely suited to staying ahead of the curve when it comes to the execution of translating abstract concepts into visual messages.

 

Amy is based in the coastal town of Langebaan, South Africa – where she can usually be found throwing a stick for her dogs, jamming out to 70s rock, or catching up with friends over a cup of coffee.

Barwani has over 10 years’ experience in adolescent sexual and reproductive health rights, health systems research and social innovation in public, international NGOs, global movements and academic settings in Malawi, USA and Sub-Saharan Africa through agenda setting, collective actions – initiate and scale up interventions, long term investments for locally driven systems change.


Since 2018, co-lead the establishment of a social innovation platform at the University of Malawi; identifying, researching and catalyzing community based innovative solutions that are extending access to rural and underserved populations, bridging inequalities in healthcare delivery and supporting – a shift in citizens leading in reorganizing of resources to address health and community needs and inclusion of local health solutions into the national small grant mechanism scheme. Leveraging storytelling, multimedia campaigns (video, social and traditional media) for buy in, to illustrate impact and transformative nature of local health solution at local and global level. She is currently supporting the WHO AYSRHR technical mechanism and the Malawi Ministry of Health in conducting a landscape analysis on youth contraceptive use and HIV incidences.


Lead multi-sectoral actors in Malawi to reposition AYSRHR (2012 -2015) within the national health agenda by translating evidence through consensus building and applying the Policy, Advocacy, and Communication Enhanced for Population and Reproductive Health approach (national campaign – focused on choice, root causes, young people, and sustainable funding) in building champions from community to national level.  Serving as a pathway for a higher family planning national budget-line, new and accessible funding streams and organizational development for youth and local NGOs – to positions of influence within national processes and full program cycle. Has conducted implementation research on youth friendly health services, immediate postpartum long-acting reversible contraception programs, costing of AYSRHR in Malawi and USA.


She is a 120 under 40 winner and has worked with the FP2030 Malawi team and mentors’ African youth leaders, WHO (TDR & SRH dept), UN agencies, USAID, DFID, PSI, Marie Stopes, Philanthropies, Africa Youth and Adolescent Network, Africa Union, IPPF and MSI. Developed content and co-facilitated communication campaigns as a pathway for movement building and AYSRHR: Youth and LARCs, Safeguard Young people #SYP (CSE), #CONDOMIZE, Stop Early and Child Marriages (Malawi & Africa), #Y4CARMMA (Campaign for Accelerated Reduction of Maternal Mortality in Africa, Africa Union), My body My Choice.

Rebecca is a 29 year old Bachelor of Journalism graduate who accidentally ended up in the world of digital (one can call her Tumblr blogging years a foreshadowing). With over 5 years of experience in the social media industry, Rebecca has worked with clients and brands ranging from lifestyle to government and offers a look into social from the perspective of both an avid-user and working professional. She approaches every project with high journalistic integrity. Cape Town-based, loves an Austen adaptation, and fiercely pro-Oxford comma.

Alasdair is a commercial editor, animator and film director. While working with Chembe, he has produced motion graphics for clients such as TDR, the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases and Kamuzu University of Health Sciences in Malawi.

 

Recently, Alasdair completed his second feature film edit – a period love story set in Zanzibar in Swahili. His first feature film edit for “Saloum”, which premiered in the Midnight Madness Category of the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2021.

 

When he isn’t editing foreign language films, he loves working in the documentary field. Having filmed ice swimming world records in Siberia and Alaska, Environmental Marine conservation documentaries all over South and East Africa and edited many humanitarian and wildlife programmes across Africa and Asia. Alasdair is passionate about telling people’s stories.

 

With his love of film and culture, Alasdair was a founding member of the Cape Town leg of the International Short Film Festival in 2010 and was its festival director for 6 years before retiring the festival in 2020. The festival was designed as a network building event through its many host cities on every continent.

Claudi likes understanding and combining seemingly opposite fields, approaches and environments. For her, creativity and analytics are not opposites, but one actually enhances one another. This has driven her to pursue an education in graphic design at Central Saint Martins in London, followed by a degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics at the University in Cape Town as well as, holding her Masters in Development Economics from the University of Amsterdam.


As a child of Africa, at the heart of her identity is a passion for social change, which has led her to work on projects relating to financial inclusion, labor fairness and reducing patient waiting times in a pediatric hospital in South Africa. In contrast, Claudi has also worked in more commercial settings, from start-ups to technology consulting for big corporations.


Claudi uses her unique background to help her find commonality and patterns when things seem unconnected. She believes that stronger ideas are formed when we combine disciplines, borrow knowledge from one area and customize it to suit the problem at hand.

Dr Lindi van Niekerk is a South African medical doctor with expertise in primary care, health systems, and social innovation. In her global health work, Lindi draws on her technical knowledge as a clinician, her qualitative research experience gained in several low-and middle-income countries, her strategic project implementation capacity, and her creative ability as a filmmaker and storyteller.

 

Since 2008, Lindi has been on a journey to catalyze acceptance and create opportunities for social innovation within health systems. While working as a medical doctor, she established the first public hospital-based end of life care project, and as Inclusive Health Innovation Lead at the University of Cape Town’s Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship, she established the first innovation lab in the main public tertiary hospital in Cape Town (Groote Schuur Hospital). Lindi co-founded the Social Innovation in Health Initiative (SIHI) in partnership with the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR), hosted at the World Health Organization. As part of this initiative, she led a multi-partner research study on social innovation models across 17 countries and provided strategic guidance to the establishment of four social innovation research hubs at universities in Malawi, Uganda, the Philippines, and Colombia. In her own doctoral research, she has focused on gaining a deeper understanding of the factors involved in institutionalizing social innovations as part of the health system in Malawi.

Since establishing Chembe Collaborative in 2016, she has worked as an independent consultant with clients ranging from universities, multilateral agencies, private companies, and non-governmental organizations. Lindi has a deep sensitivity to the cultural realities of low-and middle-income countries and the health system challenges faced by both people seeking care and providers/policymakers delivering care in these settings.

 Lindi holds a PhD in Global Health and an MSc in Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and an MBChB from the University of Pretoria.